The invention relates to a grass sod-collecting apparatus and to a method for collecting coiled grass sods.
Such apparatus and method are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,760. The sod stacker described herein has a feeder for feeding coiled sods, and a collecting platform. A conveyor belt moves the coiled sods from the feeder up to the collecting platform. The conveyor belt extends in the direction of the collecting platform. If so desired, sods fed via the conveyor belt are rotated one quarter-turn by means of a rotation device, and then passed on to the collecting platform. The collecting platform has a traveling stop against which the sod is pressed. In each case, a next sod is fed and pressed against the sods already present, until a row of sods has been formed. Next, the row is moved onto the collecting platform by means of a slide.
A drawback of this apparatus is that collecting takes place relatively slowly, and is hence not suitable for use in combination with fast sod harvesters. Further, the alignment of the sods depends on the size of the sods, so that a variation in sod size necessarily involves a change in stacking. Further, the sods are necessarily pressed one against the other during collecting, which increases the risk of damage.
The object of the invention is to provide an improved sod-collecting apparatus. It is a further object of the invention to enable displacing the sods along the collecting platform by simpler means, while maintaining a good controllability of the position of the sod in direction of displacement. To this end, the invention provides a sod-collecting apparatus and a method for collecting coiled sods. Because there is provided a positioning structure for stopping each individual sod on the conveyor belt in at least one predetermined position along the collecting platform, the effect achieved is that the sods are aligned for the collecting platform in a fast and effective manner. Also, this no longer requires mechanical contact between the sods, so that the risk of damage to the sods is reduced considerably. Further, the dimension of the sod, in particular the diameter of the coiled sod, influences the stacking result only to a highly reduced extent, if at all. By displacing the sods in axial direction along the collecting platform, the sods are little inclined to roll, even in the case of substantial accelerations and decelerations. Further, the position of the sods in conveying direction can be controlled more effectively, because the end face can be relatively flat and the width of the sodxe2x80x94unlike the diameterxe2x80x94does not depend on the depth settings of the sod cutter, the harvesting circumstances and the soil condition.